quarta-feira, 26 de dezembro de 2012

O QUE EU LI

3 December (1953): Jack Kerouac to Carolyn Cassady

Below, Jack Kerouac responds to an invitation from Carolyn
Cassady (Neal Cassady’s wife) to come west for the winter and take a job
as an attendant at a local parking lot. In so doing, Kerouac also
touches upon advances, critics, and the apocalypse. “God is alone,” he
informs Carolyn, “and I am better off because of it.” (Also:
“Strawberries” is a euphemism for marijuana, which Cassady was
attempting to grow in a lot beside his home.)

TO CAROLYN CASSADY

December 3, 1953, Richmond Hill, NY

Dear Carolyn—
The parkinglot job sounds like it’s made to order for this old philosopher.
With a guarantee from you or Neal that it is there and not a changeable
by-the-time-I-get-there deal, I am ready to take off at the first
possible moment, which is, the day after Xmas, by bus, arriving around
Dec. 29 & ready to work & glad to be with my 2 buddies again for
another New Year’s Eve.
As you know, Ginsberg won’t get to San Jose till February at the
earliest. He’s made the astounding discovery that the New World had a
“Greece & Rome” of its own & you can get there by 2nd class
buss.
I have $30 to my name & hope to earn some in Xmas rush
baggageroom work if possible in this overcrowded frosty fag town; the
least of which I can say for it. I always end up knocking off a
couple more prose masterpieces ere the publishers repeat & make
known to me thru masks of “luncheon” & “contracts” their dark
contempt for the dedicated prophetic & pure scribbler beholden to no
contract but that which the stars drew up, in the end, to no
revision but Time’s own sea of it, to no commercial slant but the sun’s
on the commerce of the brow, to no hope of earning but the harvest after
sleep.God is alone, and I am better off because of it.It’ll
be more important for me to know—in the Apocalypse of the Fellaheen to
come, when all culture & civilization are done—that the shallow-eyed
potato is the best potato, then t’would be for me to know the sum of my
Advance, what J. Roger Critic said, and the politics of reprint
rights…reprint indeed, and what tweedledee in a tweedledum world.
In Strawberries, take note of best producing runners—cut down the
others. All my life and all my lifework ahead of me, during which I make
it my hobby to feed myself, before God. Irrigate only in hot July &
August, not before or after, except in a dry Spring, of which beware.
Purple thoughts for a parkinglot & a chance to avoid an Eastern
winter, & see my little Jamie. Hire out as brakeman in the Summer
rush—head for Thanksgiving Mexico, return Spring of ’55 new senority
[sic].As ever & same old,Jack